Thousands of Vietnamese, including offspring of US troops, could be deported under tough Trump...

Thousands of Vietnamese, including offspring of US troops, could be deported under tough Trump policy

By Simon Denyer WASHINGTON POST SEPTEMBER 01, 2018
Robert Huynh is the son of an American serviceman, although he never knew his father. His mother is Vietnamese, and he was conceived during the Vietnam War. In 1984, nine years after the last American troops left the country, 14-year-old Huynh moved to Louisville with his mother, half brother, and half sisters under a US government program to bring Amerasians and others to the United States.

Today, at 48, with a son and two young grandsons in Kentucky, he faces the prospect of being sent back to Vietnam, a country he has not visited since he left and where he has no relatives or friends.

Huynh is one of about 8,000 Vietnamese potentially caught up in a tough new immigration policy adopted by the Trump administration, significantly escalating deportation proceedings against immigrants who have green cards but never became US citizens, and who have violated US law.

Huynh, who helps out these days in his family’s nail salons, has had some run-ins with the law. In his 20s, he served nearly three years behind bars for dealing in the recreational drug ecstasy; more recently, he served a year’s probation for driving under the influence and was given another period of probation for running illegal slot-machine ‘‘game rooms’’ with his girlfriend in Texas, where he now lives.

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https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2018/08/31/thousands-vietnamese-including-offspring-troops-could-deported-under-tough-trump-policy/S1Dyo53CwBHHk8zER2RY7M/story.html